


Taking it Slow

by Miri1984



Series: What Makes Me Happy [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Multi, Talking, idk any more, talking and angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 07:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1809727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984





	Taking it Slow

Bucky isn’t that up on the way things work in the modern world, but he figures it’s pretty much the same as it used to be and he’s not exactly wrong. Everyone _does_ the same things, they just don’t bother hiding it. Quite so much. He thinks it’s not polite to fuck in the lobby of Avengers tower, but Bucky figures Stark, at least, has done it more than once.

Not in the middle of the day or anything. But there are definitely a few spots amidst the pot plants and the security stations that look like strategically likely places.

“What do you reckon, Steve? You said the building was only opened up a couple of days before that alien invasion of yours, Stark and Potts must have Christened it.”

“Bucky I don’t remember you being this filthy minded in the Commandos.”

“I was trying _not_ to corrupt you back then.”

“And now you’re doing the opposite?”

“Steve I get that we’re old men now but slow in my books didn’t mean _like a glacier.”_

Steve blushed hard. Muttered. “This isn’t something I’m just gonna jump into Bucky.”

“It’s just _sex_ Steve. Jumping into it is the best thing you can _possibly_ do.”

Steve gave that pained little groan he always gave whenever Bucky mentioned the “s” word. “It’s not. Okay. You know it’s not and we’ve been through all this and perhaps next time you decide to talk about it we could possibly not do it in front of Clint and Sam? And _Natasha._ ”

The people in question are sitting at the opposite end of Steve’s dining room table. Clint has a beer open and Sam is just looking at them, blinking. Bucky twists in his seat and gives them a belligerent look. “Maybe _you_ could convince Captain Tight Pants here to loosen them a little? A man’s been on ice for seventy fucking _years_.”

Clint opens his mouth to say something but Natasha elbows him in the ribs. “I wasn’t going to say _anything about that Tasha,”_ Clint protests and Natasha just looks at him. “Well. Okay I was thinking it but I wasn’t going to _say_ it.”

“What wasn’t he going to say?” Sam says, and Natasha throws a chip at him with enough accuracy and force to break skin. “Forget I asked!”

“So this is how we get the news that you and Steve are an item?” Tasha says. “I thought you were going to give Sharon a call?”

Bucky turns a glacial look on Steve. “Who’s Sharon.”

“Please don’t kill her, Barnes,” Tasha says, but she’s smiling. “She’s a friend of mine.”

Steve is so beet red that you could probably cook a steak on him. But steak is _not_ what’s on Bucky’s mind right now.

“Maybe we should leave?” Sam suggests.

“No Sam,” Steve says. “Bucky’s just being a goddamn pain in the ass. It’s something he was always good at.”

Bucky turns his head so he knows Steve can’t see his expression and smiles at Sam. _Nicely._ Sam leans back and Steve clocks Bucky over the back of his head. “Stop that, jerk.” 

“Jesus,” Clint says. “You’re the scariest motherfudger I’ve ever seen Barnes.”

Tasha nods. “Language,” she says mildly. “There are seniors present.”

“What say we move the beers and the games to my apartment?” Clint says. “These two obviously have some talking to do.”

“I’m done talking,” Bucky says. Steve just falls forward and rests his head on the table.

The others are laughing as they leave, and Bucky leans on the door as it closes, looking at Steve. “You’re angry with me,” he says.

Steve sighs then looks up. “No of course I’m not.”

“I just embarrassed you in front of our friends. You _should_ be angry with me.”

“When have I ever done what I _should_ Buck?”

“Good point.” He walks slowly towards Steve, hesitant. The months since his return were rough on both of them, and there is no way Bucky is healed — no way Steve is either — but the past week or so Bucky has felt — not good exactly. But steady. Solid. 

It seems weird that feeling steady could be so liberating. He’s still waking with nightmares every couple of nights, still lies awake staring at the ceiling wondering if he’ll ever get to sleep, still checks the doors and windows of every room he enters for viable exits, the fittings for appropriate weapons. Still carries at least three knives and a pistol at all times (Natasha had helped him with that, Steve did _not_ like having guns in the house — they had to be well concealed). 

He’s never going to be the same. He’s coming to accept that. Believing that Steve will accept it is more difficult.

“You’re allowed to be angry with me, you know,” he says. 

“I thought you wanted to have sex.”

“I do,” he says. “But not right now.”

“You mean I should call Nat and Sam back in here?”

“No.”

Steve looks frustrated. “Then what do you want, Bucky?”

“I want to know what _you_ want.”

The look of confusion on Steve’s face is almost comical. “What?”

“When you brought me back what did you think was gonna happen?” Steve gets that look he gets when he’s trying to work the angle, find out what the strategy is and Bucky makes a frustrated sound. “Don’t try to work this, Rogers. I want a straight answer out of you, and don’t give me crap about you always being straight you know that’s not true.”

Steve’s lips curl a little at that because… well. Because. “You want the truth Bucky? Because you’re probably not gonna like it.”

“I can handle a bit of truth, Steve.”

Steve takes a deep breath. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I figured you’d be damaged, that we might not ever get you back the way you were. I figured I’d be angry and you’d be angry. I figured we’d work it out, and it would be painful, and eventually there’d be a day when we could look at each other and not have wounds that were running blood.” He looks up at Bucky with those fucking puppy eyes of his.

“It’s not what you _wanted_ though,” Bucky says, doggedly, even though he knows it’s gonna hurt. “That’s what you thought would happen, but it’s not what you wanted. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“You’ve been talking to Sam.”

“You made me,” he points out.

Steve runs a hand through his hair. “No, what I wanted was for you to wake up and be Bucky again. For you not to remember any of the things you didn’t want to remember. What I _wanted_ was for you not to have gone off that train. Or.” He stops.

Bucky isn’t even sure why he’s pressing him any more, maybe because he just wants the world to stab him in the heart a few more times. Maybe if it does that enough it won’t hurt so much any more.

“Or what?”

“I wanted to be with you when you fell,” Steve said softly. 

“So two days later you crashed a fucking plane into the arctic because you were suicidal,” Bucky says flatly. Steve looks down like he can’t bear the shame of it. “And then you woke up and took on a horde of aliens hoping they’d do the job instead.”

The hunch of Steve’s shoulders gets worse.

“And then on the helicarrier you were gonna let me punch your head clean off rather than fight for your life against me because you don’t think you’re worth it and you don’t think you’re good enough and where the _fuck_ do you get off thinking you’re not fucking _worth_ it Steven Grant Rogers I thought the world taught you better than that.”

There is a long silence. Finally Steve heaves one of his world weary sighs (and where did he get off doing those, as if he was older than Bucky as if he’d lived half the life Bucky did — he pulled the old man card far too often the kid was barely twenty six).

“Why are you giving me therapy, Buck?”

“Someone obviously fucking has to.”

“I liked it better when you were trying to have sex with me.” 

Bucky sits down opposite him. “Don’t think I’m done with that either,” he says. He manages to get another twitch of a smile out of him with that. “But not now.” He runs a hand through his hair. He still hasn’t bothered to cut it, kind of likes it long actually. Stark says it makes him look like some crazy hipster and Bucky is surprisingly okay with Stark thinking uncharitable thoughts about him. He figures he’s owed them from somewhere and he’s never gonna get them from Steve or Sam.

“So you kicked Nat and Clint and Sam out of here to lecture me about my life choices,” Steve says. 

“Basically. Yeah.”

Steve shrugs. “So?”

“What do you want, Steve? You still haven’t answered that for me. What do you want _now?”_

“I want you to be happy.”

Bucky snarls. “No. That’s not an option on the table. What do _you_ want?”

Steve shoots Bucky a look that is pure murder. “I want what’s right.” Bucky cocks an eyebrow. Steve almost growls. “I want to kill everyone who ever hurt you. I want to go back in time and live the life we should have lived. I want you, and I want you to be with _me,_ and I want _us_ to be _happy.”_

“And since you can’t have _any_ of that?”

“Fuck you, Bucky.”

“I thought we were taking it slowly.” 

Steve gets up and stalks into the bedroom. They call it _the_ bedroom. It’s the one that was assigned to Steve originally, and that’s where they both sleep now, wrapped around each other in the heat of the apartment that everyone else thinks is a furnace. The one Bucky originally slept in (if you could call the threshing and screaming he usually did sleep) is empty and the door is nearly always shut. Bucky keeps the more exotic of his weapons in there, stashed in places Steve doesn’t look. At least he hopes he doesn’t.

Bucky waits a few moments then follows him, to find Steve in the bathroom, leaning on the sink watching water flow down. He looks up as Bucky enters, jaw still tense. “Why are you poking at this now?” he asks.

“Because you won’t let me poke at anything else.”

_“Bucky.”_

Bucky smirks at him, then shrugs. “I know why we’re waiting,” he says. “I just want to make sure you do too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bucky leans forward and presses his lips to the join of Steve’s neck and collarbone. They’ve done a lot of kissing, lately, and Bucky has discovered that Steve makes the best sounds when he kisses him there. His metal hand comes up underneath Steve’s shirt and Steve hisses as the cold metal touches skin, but he doesn’t pull back, he opens up his throat, exposing it to more of Bucky’s mouth. Bucky enjoys that for a little while, before he pulls back and leans his forehead on Steve’s. “You need to know what you want just as much as I do, okay?”

Steve makes a small sound and tries to pull Bucky closer but Bucky slips away and back out into the bedroom.

“Where are you going?” Steve calls.

“To Clint’s place,” he says. “You can come if you want. I heard there was pizza and beer.”

Bucky doesn’t think he’ll ever get over how fun it is to hear Steve swear.


End file.
